My first political actions were democratic and entwined forever! (Reagan Eats Grapes too)

[Omaha Steve]

I have been very busy with my mom and missed posting about this Friday.

I remember going into a Safeway store on a Friday night to get something in the late 60's. At the door were what I believe were college students handing out "Every Grape You Buy Keeps This Child Hungry" fliers. The photo told me all I needed to know. Mom and dad would honor my request and didn't buy grapes until after the boycott ended on July 29, 1970.

In 1968 a Bobby Kennedy worker going door to door commented to mom people in the neighborhood were home but not answering the door. I told mom I knew everybody and would help get our neighbors to answer the door. She said ok. I spent a pleasant April Sunday working to elect our next President. I still have my Kennedy Button from that day.

Bobbi won the Nebraska primary in an upset. Soon he would be in California spending time in support of the grape strike.

Friday was the anniversary of the Nixon Eats Grapes boycott resulting in a win for farm workers with a contract.


Cesar Chavez breaking fast with Bobby Kennedy


You tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7GCCBIgFaQ&feature=player_embedded#at=17

OS

Just a month before he is assassinated, Dr. King sends a warm message expressing solidarity. Sen. Robert Kennedy joins 8,000 farm workers and supporters at a Catholic Mass where Chavez breaks his fast, calling the weakened farm labor leader "one of the heroic figures of our time." There is no more talk of violence by the strikers, but Chavez spends more than a year recovering from painful back ailments aggravated by the fast.

Spring 1968--The UFW devotes full time efforts to Robert Kennedy's California Democratic presidential primary campaign in Latino barrios across the state. Some East Los Angeles precincts vote for Kennedy by margins of 99% and 100%. It is the first of hundreds of UFW-organized political campaigns that would follow, up to the present day.


Following a five-year table grape boycott, Delano-area growers file into the United Farm Workers union hall in Delano, Calif. to sign their first union contracts - 1970 (Farmworker’s Friend: The story of Cesar Chavez is one of four UCS books on the UFW founder. This sympathetic portrayal of Chavez and his life’s work begins with his childhood and traces his growth as a man and as a leader, talking of his pacifism, his courage in the face of great threats and greater odds, his leadership and his view that the union was more than just a union, it was a community -- una causa. Recommended by the publisher for grades 4 to 7, its straightforward narrative and dozens of photos help make this a wonderful book, and not just for young people. In the UCS bookstore now)



Chavez began organizing farmworkers in 1962, as John Kennedy’s presidency stirred hope throughout the nation. But Kennedy was killed in 1963, Ronald Reagan was elected California’s Governor in 1966, and Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968; both Reagan and Nixon regularly faced cameras eating non-union grapes. In 1968, the UFW helped bring Robert Kennedy’s victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary.

Many believed the close farmworker ally would be our next President, until he was assassinated on primary night as the UFW’s Dolores Huerta stood by his side. Yet Chavez and UFW activists did not allow even such powerful, emotional setbacks to break their spirit. Chavez and the UFW did not just chant “Yes We Can! (“Si Se Puede!”), they practiced it – exercising an unyielding commitment to social justice that provides a roadmap for activists today.

[Omaha Steve]

1. Kick